Pricing Surveys

Pricing research is tricky, both for existing and (especially) for new products/services! What would your response be to a question such as “How much would you pay for this product”? The answer is likely to be vague (and often cheaper than might be commercially feasible!).

The most common quantitative technique for pricing research is “Brand Price Trade Off” (BPTO). Simplistically, BPTO presents the respondent with a series of choices such as “If you were in the market for product xyz, which would you buy – brand ABC at £1.50 or Brand DEF at £1.75?”.

By varying the price that each brand is presented at, and by increasing/decreasing the price gap, it is possible to assess likely purchase patterns “…for a particular brand at a particular price alongside other brands at other prices…”.

This technique works extremely well for well-known brands (that already have established features, positioning and “personalities”), and can be extended to cover choices between different brands with different pack sizes.

Researching the price of a service (as opposed to a tangible product) is substantially more complex, and almost always involves a substantial number of qualitative interviews in order to assess the full range of influences.